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Marvin, 7/19/21

Almost ten years ago, my audiologist told me something that has really stuck with me: studies have shown that when someone gets a hearing aid, it noticeably improves their relationship with their spouse or partner, even if the hearing aid itself is ineffective. It turns out that, when your partner can’t hear you very well and always makes you repeat yourself or just tunes you out, that’s a constant stressor on a relationship, and just the fact that your partner tries to improve the situation often changes how you feel about them for the better. And because hearing loss is often (though not always!) associated with aging, opening a conversation about it can be very fraught! This is mostly to say that nobody in Marvin would ever get a hearing aid out of consideration for their spouse, because they’ve repeatedly shown that they all hate one another.

Funky Winkerbean, 7/19/21

Ha ha, holy crap, Phil Holt faked his death! Gotta admit, just when you think Funky Winkerbean has explored all the depressing ways death can affect us, it comes up with a new one (i.e., sometimes people who you think are dead really aren’t, and often they’re real assholes so it’s kind of a shame). Anyway, since we’ve already seen Phil as a ghost, talking to dead ghost Lisa about how Darrin auctioned off the valuable comic book covers Holt left Darrin in his will for charity, it seems like we’re going to learn some shocking truths about the theology of the Funkyverse afterlife, as well as some legal stuff about whether you can get back the stuff you leave people in your will if you fake your death.

Mary Worth, 7/19/21

We’ve all been thinking that Drew will be easily scammed by Ashlee because he’ll just automatically agree to whatever outrageous request he makes of her. But we weren’t counting on the layer of protection offered by his goldfish-like brain, which has been distracted from his bold promise to Ashlee by whatever shiny object he encountered next. I’m talking about a literal shiny object, possibly his watch. “Oh, hey, my watch is back!” he’ll say, noticing it on his wrist. “I wonder how that happened!”

Blondie, 7/19/21

You ever notice how young people today don’t appreciate proper grooming and instead like it when you look like a slob? It’s disgusting and I personally blame this corruption of the young on [checks notes] 57-year-old actor Brad Pitt.

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Hi and Lois, 7/11/21

I don’t really care much about the lazily structured “joke” about Chip not mowing the lawn, but I am very interested in the tiny adult Hi (Himunculus?) in the top-row throwaway panel. Since Hi has been trapped in amber at the age of fortysomething since the strip launched in the Eisenhower Administration, his mental images of his youth and the past are understandably confused. “I was a child … in the ’50s, I think? And I smoked a pipe? I think I smoked a pipe in the ’50s?”

Dennis the Menace, 7/11/21

I am honestly very much here for Dennis the Menace strips where Dennis himself doesn’t even appear. Maybe the strips should be about his very absence, or maybe they should just be about what the other characters get up to without him. We haven’t had a comic strip character get Barney Googled in ages, and I think Dennis is a great candidate!

Marvin, 7/11/21

Me reading the first two panels of today’s Marvin: “Ah, a Marvin that isn’t about shitting for once!”

Me reading the the third panel of today’s Marvin: “Wait, unless…”

Me reading the first fourth panel of today’s Marvin: “Oh no”

Me reading the rest of the panels of today’s Marvin: “Oh NO”

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Hagar the Horrible, 7/6/21

Ha ha! It’s funny because Lucky Eddie has made this same silly dad joke repeatedly, every time Hagar’s warband comes to sack this tiny little village, which, again, has happened often enough for everyone to get sick of the joke. Can you imagine the horror? Can you imagine these defenseless villagers forced to give up whatever meager amounts of wealth they’ve been able to accumulate since the last raid or suffer ghastly, violent consequences? Can you imagine them hiding in the ruined castle, once a symbol of the Carolingian Empire that restored peace and order to Western Europe, but now just an empty shell as the grandsons and great-grandsons of Charlemagne squabble amongst themselves, leaving the periphery of the Empire to rot? I’m sure they too would see the humor in Eddie’s little jest, were they not cringing in terror in some dark hiding spot somewhere!

Marvin, 7/6/21

If you only knew about Marvin from my blog, you might have a slanted view of the strip as being primarily about pooping. That’s not true, though; it’s really about a smug nightmare baby who, among his many other bad qualities, can dish it out but can’t take it. (Both “it”s in that sentence, to be perfectly clear, refer to poop.)